📘 MERN Book App

A full-stack MERN application for discovering books, publishing chapters, and managing reader reviews — designed with a strong focus on backend architecture, API design, and real-world application flow.

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✨ Features

👨‍🎓 Reader Experience

• Browse books from the Explore page
• Filter, sort, and paginate results
• Select page size (6, 12, 24) with proper navigation controls
• View detailed book pages with chapter reading and reviews
• Create, edit, and delete reviews

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✍️ Author Experience

• Add books with metadata and optional cover upload
• Automatically continue to edit flow after creation
• Manage personal catalog (My Books)
• Edit and delete books
• Publish chapters incrementally

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⚙️ Backend Capabilities

• JWT Authentication (/auth/register, /auth/login, /auth/me)

• Role-based authorization and ownership guards — authenticated users can manage their own books, chapters, and reviews; admins can manage all resources

• Advanced query handling:

  • filtering
  • sorting
  • pagination
  • field selection

• Aggregation pipelines:

  • trending books
  • review statistics

• Nested routes for reviews

• Chapter publishing system

• Image uploads using Multer (stored locally in /uploads/covers)

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🛠️ Tech Stack

🧩 Backend

• Node.js
• Express
• MongoDB + Mongoose
• JWT (jsonwebtoken)
• bcrypt
• multer

🎨 Frontend

• React (Vite)
• React Router
• Axios
• Tailwind CSS

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📂 Project Structure

MERN-BookApp/
├── backend/
│   ├── index.js
│   ├── controllers/
│   ├── middleware/
│   ├── models/
│   ├── routes/
│   └── utils/
│
└── frontend/
    ├── index.html
    ├── vite.config.js
    └── src/
        ├── api/
        ├── components/
        ├── pages/
        └── utils/

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⚙️ Environment Variables

🔐 Backend (.env)

MONGO_URI=your_mongodb_connection_string
PORT=5555
JWT_SECRET=your_jwt_secret
JWT_EXPIRES_IN=7d

📌 Cover uploads are stored locally in backend/uploads/covers.

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🌐 Frontend (.env)

VITE_API_URL=http://localhost:5555

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▶️ Running Locally

Clone The Repo

git clone https://github.com/NuhaG/BookApp.git
cd BookApp

Backend

cd backend
npm install
npm run dev

Frontend

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

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📖 Documentation

Full API documentation with route details and request/response examples is available in API.md.

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

If you'd like to improve the project:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Commit your changes
4. Open a Pull Request

Suggestions, improvements, and bug fixes are appreciated.

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.